Hello Gals and Ghouls! Welcome to the Atheist Experience with Spooky Sofia Spina & Jump-Scare Johnny P. Angel.
Let’s say hi to Daniel from the Lone Star state, a former atheist who is now a believer. His argument is that morality is just intuitive and objective, so it has to come from a divine force, correct? Nope. Johnny & Sofia explain how morally wrong things are simply wrong because we don’t want harm coming to us and we extend that empathy to others.
Second call is from Art from Pennsylvania, who wants to talk about how consciousness forms our reality through the process of sensations, which also leads to identity, which gets us to solipsism. An interesting conversation to say the least.
Michael from Texas gives us an account of having a series of exorcisms performed on him due to his schizophrenic episodes being terribly mistaken as demons possessing his body. He also describes the baptism rituals that people had died from. Johnny and Sofia offer sympathy and kindness to Michael and encourage him to seek professional help. Mental illness mistaken for supernatural possession can cause deep harm and trauma. We need to encourage good mental health instead of superstitious thinking that causes real damage to people, even if it is done through love.
Coming in from New Mexico, it’s Dusty who wants to discuss not only did he try to find the “truth” when he was his younger self, but through becoming an avid reader and skeptic discovered that guess what? There is no divine truth or evidence of a God. Weird how education works that way, Also he remarks on our hosts patience when dealing with our theist callers which yes, we can all behold as something to admire.
Welcome John from Canada where his hot take is that the reason the shooting in Maine happened and other acts of violence in the USA is because people lack faith. Now, this is a post-hoc explanation for why bad things happen. Faith or lack thereof can lead to good things and bad things. John obviously doesn’t know his history (the Crusades anyone?). Since we were formed all the way up to the year of our Lord 2023, people have the capacity for violence and/or kindness. John is off his A-game again!
Val from Canada gives us a very amusing call about her recent Renaissance Wedding (Huzzah!) and due to a comedy of errors, she said a prayer to the Goddess Fryda to release some of that wedding stress. We all have our ways of releasing tension and though she said it was weird, she did feel better and could have a laugh. From one atheo-pagan to another, no shame in your game Val. Sometimes you just gotta pray to the non-existent sky Gods.
Marsh calls in from India and he is wondering where consciousness comes from? Now the easiest answer is the mind. But, our hosts took the philosophical reason route. The conversation goes into AI, our own experience of consciousness, and the experience of reality. Also, Star Trek which gives us our nerd cred.
WHAT IS THE ATHEIST EXPERIENCE?The Atheist Experience is a weekly call-in internet show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. The Atheist Experience is produced by the Atheist Community of Austin.
Call the show on Sundays 4:30pm-6:00pm CT: 1-512-991-9242 or use your computer 💻 http://tiny.cc/callaxp and tell us what you believe and why!
We request pronouns as part of the call screening process on our shows, and we display the pronouns our callers provide. If you see a caller with no pronouns indicated, this is because they chose not to provide us with any, and we respect that decision.
Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.
